This essay argues that, neoliberalism has created a continuum of deservedness, one that favours some groups in their claims to social rights, while at the same time inhibiting others. The Themes essay covers corporate and globalization policies, conflict resolution, and foreign policies. Since the advent of neo-colonialism, its main objective has been to remove all the barriers of commerce among the economies of the world, and the privatization of all the available services and resources. Therefore, in this context, public life is placed at the mercy of the market forces, while the extracted profits only benefits the few social elites. The continued thrust of the international policies behind economic globalisation appears to be neoliberal in nature. Since neoliberal policies have become hugely profitable to the wealthy elite and corporations, they are being propagated through the IMF, WTO and the World Bank (MP, 14.1, 509). Neoliberalism has been reported to be favouring the free-market as the major and the most efficient method of globalisation. Nonetheless, there has been much attention directed towards neoliberalism in our contemporary world, its ideologies have been strongly rejected by the influential countries in Latin America and other parts of the world, and its moral basis put into question. The many protests against the World Bank and IMF are essentially protests against the numerous neoliberal policies that these institutions implement especially in the low-income countries.
Thesis statement: Neoliberal policies has failed to combat extreme poverty, hampering international aid and development efforts, and has also exacerbated global inequality.
According to the definitions brought forth by Lisa Duggan in her book The Twilight of Equality, “neoliberalism is generally associated with various sets of policy imperatives for international government and for business operations that are were being referred to as the “Washington Consensus” of the 80’s and the 90’s. Instigated by the International monetary Fund, the U.S. Treasury, World trade organisation, market liberalization, neoliberal policies of fiscal authorities and government stabilization are the pro-corporate capitalist’s guarantors of private property relations. They have been modelled to recreate the globe in the context of the unimpeded operation of the capitalists “free” markets and to ultimately cut back both the public, non-commercial powers and the resources that would otherwise impeded or drain profit making. Nominally pro-democratic and the neoliberal financial institutions have ultimately managed to operate autocratically, and primarily through financial coercion (Duggan 12). Lisa Duggan further explains that neo-colonialism’s avatars have also presented a type of doctrine that is meant to be universally inevitable while its operations as beneficial at the end , whether some individuals may be going through suffering due to the level of poverty that they may have been subjected to in the short term. She goes further to explain neo-colonialism to being a certain type of a secular faith where its priests are never elected by anybody, but they are accountable only to the global elites to whom they promote their interests by its policies.
EFFECTS OF NEOLIBERAL POLICIES ON AMERICANS AND NON-CITIZENS
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, there emerged corporate enterprises that sought to help create a wealthy class in the society that is known to be enjoying excessive political influence on their respective governments in Europe and the US. Therefore, neoliberalism ultimately surfaced as a reaction by these wealthy individuals to counter the post-war policies that were largely favouring the working class and was also strengthening the welfare state. In most cases, neoliberal policies largely advocates the market forces and the commercial activities as the most appropriate methods for producing and also supplying goods and services. In light of this explanation, neoliberalism also shun the role of the state by discouraging the aspect of state intervention into various economic, social and financial affairs. Generally, the aspect of global economy is driven by varied ideologies which entails removing borders and barriers between the economic interconnection of nations so that the market forces would be able to effectively drive the world economy. Therefore, the neoliberal policies were taken up by classical economists and governments and thus allowing for corporations and the few affluent countries to secure a greater advantage within the structures of the new world economy. These neoliberal policies were most ardently enforced in Europe and US back in the 1980s during the reign of Regan Thatcher–Kohl (Duggan 42). These leaders adopted the notion that, expanding the free-market and the idea of private ownership would end up creating a greater economic efficiency and social well-being of both the citizens and the non-citizens.
The impact of neoliberalism in American and its non-citizens is immense. There appears to be a very big discrepancy between the measurable factor of economic globalization and the proposed benefits of neoliberalism (MP, 14.1, 511). Arguably, the concept of neoliberalism has managed to create an immense level of wealth for some given individuals but unfortunately it has not been able to benefit the Americans who are living in extreme poverty and are most in need of financial aid especially the countries in South America. Basing my argument on the global picture with regard to its impact on the citizens, excluding a country such as China, the annual growth of the economy in developing countries from the years 1960 and 1980 was 3.2%. However, this economic growth dropped drastically between the year 1980 and 2000 to a low of 0.7%. This second part of economic growth, comprises the period when the issue of neoliberalism was most prevalent and greatly included in all our global economic policies. Interestingly, it is worth noting that, during this second part of neoliberalism, China was not among the countries that were included in this supposedly economic reintegration that required strict adherence to the neoliberal models of economic growth, but it has recorded very impressive per capita growth over that period from 1980 and 2000. This example about China can be used as one of the most concrete illustrations of how the issue of neoliberalism has affected both the Americans and the non-citizens, and also how they would have probably performed economically if the issue of neoliberalism was not adopted (MP, 10.2,332).
WAYS NEOLIBERAL POLICIES COMBINED CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS
Revisiting the ideas that Duggan has presented in her book, it is evident that her main objective was to demonstrate how neoliberalism has a shifting cultural politics that has to be understood by the progressive-left in order to fully constitute an effective opposition. However, rather than focusing on the issue of neoliberalism’s cultural projects, the sectors of the progressive-left ends up reproducing, within their own debates, the liberalism’s rhetorical separation of the class politics from the cultural politics. Precisely, this separation is seriously disturbs and disables political analysis and activism (Duggan 19). Nonetheless, Duggan believes that the major terms and categories of liberalism are purely rhetorical and therefore they do not describe the contemporary or real world but rather they only provide a single approach understanding and organizing collective life. Contrary to the notion adopted by many Americans, neoliberalism obscure and mystifies numerous aspects of our social lives under capitalism, thereby hiding stark inequalities of class, wealth and power, race, gender and also sexuality across states-nations as well as within them. On the other hand, the third way proponents whom appeared in the early 90’s argued for relatively smaller but more efficient governments which were being operated on the globally accepted business management principles and were appealing to the “civil society” and “the family” to go a step further and take up significant roles in the provision of the social safety nets (Duggan 10).For example the case with PRWOA and Bill Clinton.
The major problem is that the welfare programs normally offers resources especially to the poor women in Latin America , who are otherwise enabled to make undesirable choices (MP, CH 11, 393). Therefore, the general combination of market discipline, in line of dependency on low-wage jobs, and also with regard to the family or social aspects in the form of dependency on their husbands have been used to create an ideal world under neoliberals. However, the truth of this economic and cultural combination by neoliberalism is that as long as the various welfare programs makes it possible for the young women to start having children without husbands and also surviving without a job, these countries will continue to be marked by despair, crime and poverty. In respect to cultural and family connections, this book argues that the family is the basic unit of a society and it is therefore a gendered form of institution meant for privatizing social costs. Duggan adds to this concept by arguing that the state must therefore completely refrain from interfering with the free market or in the brutalities and biases of discriminatory civic institutions (Duggan, 64-65).
WAYS MOBILIZING CONSTITUENTS HAS MADE IT HARD TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS
In the book Major Problems in America in American History Since 1945 Third Edition authored by Robert Griffith and Paula Baker, further explanation with regard to social and cultural history is brought forth. Griffith and Baker have deeply focuses on the issue of race and ethnicity and how it affected the last 10 years of the economy. In chapter 12, these authors have clearly elaborated how the economy was affected during Reagan’s era. According to their explanation, mobilizing constituents mostly comprises building support for social change or even to prevent change from occurring. It entails developing awareness and consequently expanding influence by reaching more people especially those who care about the issue that are related to that particular community or a political problem (MP, 12.5, 447.). With regard to neoliberalism, mobilizing constituents has really made it hard to resolve conflicts. For instance since the chronic economic crisis that spanned throughout the 1980’s, and also the ultimate collapse of the communist bloc at the end of the same period, greatly aided in fostering political opposition to state intervention especially in the favour of free market reforms. However, from the 1980 to the current time, various communist countries have sought to initiate the neoliberal market reforms, for instance the case of the socialists Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Ante Markovic until its collapse in the early 90’s. Therefore, due to these changes that occurred from the early 80’s, and started off with championing for the global democratic rights, the role of the state in monitoring the free trade and also in the rule of law. Due to this state of affairs, when activists or other interested parties decide to mobilize the constituents with regard to the issue of free markets or any other thing that is created by neoliberalism, becomes very hard to be solved through this means. Conflicts of this nature are normally solved through the market forces that control the economy among different countries or governments. For instance, the dramatic social and economic improvement that have been observed various countries has not spared them from being demonized by the US. Countries such as Cuba are well known examples of this type of propaganda (MP, 13, 5, 478).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident that neoliberal ideology and models embodies some sought of outdated and selfish structures of the economy. It is a model that was coined by the former imperial powers and consequently adopted by the economically dominant countries. Due to the current state of the global market and its relative financial structures, it is obvious that some countries that are wealthy can take advantage of their strong economic foundations so as to pressurize the lesser developed nations. In fact, it is due to this reason that some modern economists such as Monica Prasad have termed neoliberalism as a form of economic colonialism. Since the main goal of the neoliberal globalization is the removal of all the barriers that may hinder commerce and privatization among different countries, it is most likely that the public life will be therefore placed under the mercy of the common volatile market forces that control the global economy. Generally, change is crucial in the situation where the global public is to be able to manage the essentials for life and also ensure that all the Americans and the non-citizens are able to access them as part of their basic human right.
